A Confucian Family and Japanese Modernization: The Descendants of the Koga Family in Early 20th-Century Japan

Abstract

This research note discusses how Confucian scholars, who had a considerable influence on Japanese thought and education during the first half of the 19th century, were able to survive the Meiji Restoration in Japan — a period that forced Confucian scholars to adapt to extreme changes and the structural problem presented by the Japanese social welfare system at the beginning of the 20th century. This study focuses on the paths taken by the descendants of the Koga family — which was once a prestigious family with strong ties to Shoheiko, the center of Confucian education in early modern Japan — during the Meiji and Taisho periods. The history of the Koga family is recorded in the documents of Kusama Yasoo, who discovered a contemporary descendant of the Koga family and subsequently supported him. These records demonstrate that the rise of Western natural science following the Meiji period reduced the demand for Confucian studies. Consequently, the descendants of Confucian scholars in Japan were forced into lives of hardship without social welfare support in the early 20th century. Despite their achievements and influence as Confucian scholars in the early modern period, the Koga family was one of several shogunate vassal families that came to be poorly regarded by later generations. The social conditions that their descendants had to endure during the Meiji and Taisho periods were a major factor that resulted in the Koga family becoming a “forgotten” Confucian family.